Monday May 23 - Orientation to the OR

Today started bright and early with a quick breakfast and then a ship meeting at 7:45. As of today there are 409 crew on board the ship, and pretty much everyone gathers for Monday morning devotions and any important announcements. After this the OR staff meets around 8:15 at the whiteboard for an overview of the days cases and any changes ("the huddle" for all my Sick Kids people) a quick prayer and then its off to the races.

Due to staffing and available nurses/surgeons there are only 5 of the 6 ORs running right now. The 6th room was an orthopaedic room but because the Ortho surgeon has just finished, there will be no more ortho surgeries until another arrives. Today there was 1 opthamology (eyeballs) team working in between 2 rooms, a plastics team, and a maxillofacial team working.

I had my orientation for most of the morning. We spent a lot of time going over paperwork and policies and then we were able to go into the rooms and figure out where everything is. I spent a little bit of time this afternoon in the opthamology OR's learning the routine and talking to the nurse who leads the service. Most of the opthamology cases are done under local anesthesia. The surgeon who is here this week can do about 8 cases in a day. He has only been here for 2 weeks and goes home on Friday. One of the more regular surgeons will be back next week and he apparently can do anywhere from 15-20 patients in a day! It will be interesting trying to keep up with him! Apparently he can do a cataract surgery in anywhere from 3-5 minutes.

Before even working with the patients I have noticed that there are a lot of similarities and differences between the ORs here and the ORs at Sick Kids. We have a lot of the same equipment (although most of the machines are older models). It is amazing to see the amount of donations that are made to the ship as well... sutures, Bairhuggers and blankets and a lot of other disposable equipment! There are a lot of differences as well. In some ways they are even ahead of us! It was really funny to find out that the ORs all have megadyne pads for their cautery pads (something that we have just finished trialing at Sick Kids).

There are many simple things that we take for granted living in Canada. A simple example is the garbage here. All of our sharps (ie. needles, blades, etc) and bio hazard garbage (ie. anything disposable that has touched the patient especially if it has blood or bodily fluids on it) is put in a special bag and then into a paper bag... it is then stapled shut and taken to an incinerator on the ship to be burned. The reason for this is that all of the ship's regular garbage is taken to the dump where people (including many kids) come and cut open every bag and sift through them.

This afternoon I had to go get some local currency from the ship's bank. I felt sooo rich leaving with my 300,000 Leones!!! Even though it really only equals $69 us... the thick wad of cash made me feel like I should go spend some money haha! This evening we had our ship orientation where we learned how to be true ship crew members! haha maybe not so much, but we did learn how to evacuate as well as what to do if someone falls overboard! We were also briefed on the security of the ship... so to anyone who is worried I can tell you that they have an amazing team looking out for the safety of everyone on board!

Alright I am off for the night! hope everyone is doing well and that you all had a great May long weekend!